Artefact Cards Blog

Using Artefact Cards - Louise Williamson

Posted on
October 24, 2012
by
John Willshire

How did you think you'd used the cards?

I suppose
I should show my cards here (aherm), I've used Artefects cards many a
time with the Artefact Lord himself, Mr J Willshire, so I knew how they
worked. What was new for me was using them in a workshop context with a
team of people who have no idea what they are and why they exist.

The
plan was to use them during a brand development workshop for a client
in two ways: firstly, to use them informally, encouraging people to
capture thoughts/key points as we go and secondly more formally during
specific sessions where I encouraged people to use them in a certain
way.

How did you actually use them?

It all went
according to plan, sort of. People were curious to a degree and like
fiddling with them. The one challenge that I did find, was a reluctance
to write on them, my instinct is that this is due to the permanence of
them - some didn't feel confident to happily scribble away. But once
they'd got used to it some people really got into it, others stayed a
little reluctant.

What worked really well was getting the
'soundbites' that people say down on cards - ideally by them, if not by
me. Those words then sat in front of those people throughout the day
and were referred back to time and again, that doesn't happen as fluidly
with a flip chart.

What was also great was getting people's
handwriting down: it helped them identify that point as their own, both
during the session and afterwards when it was played back to them.

Have they changed the way you do anything?

For me there are two big wins, one is around the capturing of thoughts, the second is around organising them.

They
allow you to capture things during session in a way that isn't as easy
on other mediums: post-it notes are quite good at this but it's hard to
store them after the event, plus they look a bit crappy, flipcharts are
good for sharing thoughts publicly but they're hard to move about -
plus you always end up in that annoying situation when you start writing
things in a certain way on the flip chart and then halfway through
writing it you wished you'd organised it in a different way.

But
it's in the organising of thoughts that I find they really come into
their own, you can keep rejigging, replotting, reforming thoughts until
you get somewhere strong. You can't do that with anything else. Plus
if there's a point you want to make sure you never forget you just leave
it at the front of the deck. Good eh.

How do you describe them to others?

Hmmm, I don't think I do this well actually. I think I said they're like turbo post-it notes. Cards for thoughts.

Any final thoughts..?

A
hidden bit of their brilliance is their portability, something I hadn't
really pondered on before. Very useful for a train ride. Or a cafe.
Or a sitting room floor. And seeing as I'm rarely based at an office
desk this is a very good thing indeed.